Follows independent reviewer’s recommendation
A spell-check tool is to be trialled in SQE2 written assessments for the first time, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has announced.
The tool, which will be available on the Pearson assessment platform, is set to debut in the SQE2 July 2026 written assessment window. It is designed solely to help candidates identify spelling errors and does not offer grammatical corrections, writing assistance or content suggestions.
The move follows a recommendation in the SQE independent reviewer’s annual report, which called for steps to better support candidates in their written work.
Candidates wanting to familiarise themselves with the tool ahead of July can access it via the SQE2 Pearson practice platform, which is linked from the SQE2 sample questions page.
The SRA has been clear, however, that the introduction of the tool does not alter the existing marking standards. The current guidance on spelling and grammar for SQE2 written assessments requires candidates to use clear, precise, concise and acceptable language and remains in effect during the trial period.
The announcement comes as SQE2’s latest pass rate climbed to 80% in the January 2026 sitting, up from 78% in the previous October/November window.
SQE2 consists of 16 stations, comprising 12 written assessments and four oral exercises, testing practical legal skills and functioning legal knowledge.
Hmm. Sure, I’m now 60 and therefore irrelevant but, in my day, you basically weren’t good enough to be a lawyer if you couldn’t spell properly and well. If you made spelling errors in the exams you got marked down – on the basis that it would be very much frowned upon at work. Words, that’s our world. You might privately check the odd word occasionally in a dictionary but an inherent part of being a well-educated person is being able to write properly; this stuff should be as natural as breathing. How can you possibly be any good at reading a draft agreement or any document if you can’t spell well?
Spell check? For goodness’ sake. Trust your education or improve on it; don’t rely on a machine.
Typing quickly inevitably induces errors. You accidentally double-hit a key, miss the key you were going for, or your fingers move so fast that you didn’t hit the keys in the order you intended to. They can read correct at a glance even when being cautious.
Famously, people often fail to notice if you put “the the” in a sentence and can actually read a sentence even if only the first few letters of each word are present. This is because we are highly adapted to read and interpret quickly, the correctness of what we read is only secondary unless it is unintelligible.
It’s nothing to do with intelligence or education. Even professional typists aren’t judged by the standard of making no errors, they’re judged for the errors they fail to correct.
There is also the fact that digitally a person can go back and edit a line without rewriting the entire thing, sometimes this can introduce errors.
Respectfully, I struggle to believe that when you go to write at a computer you make no mistakes and have no need of spellcheck.
SQE examiners are currently instructed to disregard spelling/grammatical mistakes that could be easily resolved by spellcheck, in recognition of the fact that spellcheck has been available for decades in the profession. Welcome to the 21st century.